


Somewhere Far From Here

by m_class



Series: 007 Fest 2019 Angst Prompt Table [1]
Category: Goldfinger (1964), James Bond (Classic movies), James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012)
Genre: Angst Prompt Table 2019 - Murder, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied use of painkiller drugs for medical purposes, Injury Recovery, Severine Lives, Tilly Masterson Lives, but emphasis on the pre not on the slash, can be read as pre-femslash, since Tilly isn't a creep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 11:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20063464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_class/pseuds/m_class
Summary: Sévérine wakes in a Macau hotel room with an unknown woman sitting beside her bed.





	Somewhere Far From Here

**Author's Note:**

> Each prompt fic can be read as a stand-alone or as part of the series in order.  
This fic is a fairly direct prequel to prompt fic #9, [Horizon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067712).

The air smells like blood and perfume.

Sévérine opens her eyes.

She is lying on a bed in a hotel room, the furnishings plain and inexpensive and anonymous. Turning her head, she peers toward the afternoon daylight shining in through the filmy curtains, trying to gauge where she is, but the movement sends pain shooting through her entire body, and she winces, closing her eyes. She feels disconnected from the pain somehow, floating on a cushion of softness, but it still tears at the corners of her mind, aching and burning.

“Hey, easy,” says a voice to her right. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Sévérine opens her eyes, squinting again. There is a woman sitting to her right, petite, with brown hair and dark eyes. Perhaps a few years younger than Sévérine, at least in body, though her eyes tell a different story. Old eyes in a young face; something Sévérine has seen many different times on many different people, for many different reasons.

“How are you feeling?” the woman asks.

“Where am I?” Sévérine counters. Her voice feels dry and rusty, and talking hurts, but she isn’t going to show this stranger that.

“Back on the peninsula.” The woman tilts her head, regarding her, and Sévérine can’t read the expression in her eyes. It could almost be the look people get when handling something important and fragile; folding a letter carefully, or arranging a vase of flowers. But her words, as she continues, are simple and frank. “My name is Tilly Masterson. I came to Macau when I heard from an old…” She seems to consider her next word carefully, her lip curling in a slight sneer. “_Acquaintance _...that he had met someone who could use my help. You were that someone.” She sighs softly, meeting Sévérine’s eyes. “Sévérine, Mr. Silva will likely be dead soon. More to the point, whatever happens to him, he believes you to be dead now. To get technical--” and there’s that careful, attentive look again-- “you were dead for several minutes. You should rightfully be in hospital right now," she adds, "but your death is an illusion it would seem unwise to shatter.”

Sévérine nods, despite the pain the motions sends shooting through her, but this time, she thinks the other woman--Masterson--catches it.

“Hey, it's okay, you don’t need to move,” she says gently, turning to pluck a bowl from the hotel nightstand. “Would you like to try to have an ice chip?”

Sévérine feels her forehead wrinkle. 

“Ice chips,” Masterson explains, her momentary puzzlement at Sévérine’s puzzlement clearing as she follows Sévérine’s gaze to the bowl in her hands. “When people are sick or injured and not ready to have water yet, sometimes doctors will give them ice chips, so you can wet your mouth and have a bit of water, see?”

Sévérine starts to nod, remembers the pain, and makes an_ mm-hmm _ noise instead. 

“Would you like to try one, or would you rather wait?”

Sévérine makes another _mm-hmm_ noise, and Masterson fishes an ice chip out of the bowl with what looks like a cocktail spoon, raising it to Sévérine's lips. Sévérine holds the chip on her tongue, relishing the feeling of water soothing her rusty throat.

“Why are you here?” she asks, once she has finished the chip.

Masterson is quiet for a long moment. “I endeavor to help people," she says finally, "when I can. I have a...certain skillset that comes in handy in a certain kind of situation, and some associates around the world who let me know when that kind of situation comes to pass.” She pokes at the ice with her spoon. “Would you like another chip?”

“What do you want from me?” Sévérine asks. Her throat is still sore and dry, but it's a little less painful to speak.

Masterson looks startled, then something like sad. “I don’t want anything from you.”

_ And I will believe that, _ Sévérine thinks, _ when I see it. _

Aloud, she says, “I’ll take another chip.”

Masterson gives it to her, and for another moment, Sévérine closes her eyes, enjoying the coolness. Exhaustion is pulling at her, and the soft floatiness in her mind isn’t helping. 

“I have the funds,” Masterson continues, “to get us away from Macau, if you’d like, once you’ve recovered enough to travel. Where would you like to go?”

_ Where would you like to go? _

Anywhere.

Everywhere.

“Somewhere far from here,” she says.

Even with her eyes closed, she can hear a trace of a smile in Masterson’s voice, and a trace of exhaustion as well, some part of her sounding almost as worn as Sévérine feels. “That," she says, "sounds like a plan.”


End file.
